Peabody strikes landmark deal to build on former gasworks

One of the largest providers of social housing has signed a landmark deal to turn a former gasworks into affordable housing. The deal has led to calls for more land formerly dedicated to utilities to be used in this way.

The Peabody Trust has bought land in west London from Lattice, formerly part of public utilities company British Gas.

The registered social landlord plans to build 308 homes on the 40 hectare site. One-third will be social housing for rent, one-third shared ownership and one-third for sale. There will also be commercial space.

Richard McCarthy, chief executive of the Peabody Trust, said the deal highlighted the need to give RSLs access to brownfield sites owned by former public utilities companies such as Lattice.

Speaking at last week's Urban Summit in Birmingham, he said: "If [the government] can get us public sector land from former public utilities through compulsory purchase orders, then [RSLs] can give more homes.

"The obvious choice would be to empower English Partnerships to acquire land through compulsory purchase orders. English Partnerships have been told to pool land and work with along with the Housing Corporation. There needs to be a way of involving RSLs, to give them a chance to capture the value of land and recycle it through development."

Richard Best, chairman of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, agreed: "We have to reclaim CPOs for the good of society."

Currently there is no pressure on former public companies to make disused land available for social housing development.

Like other landowners, they are free to decide when and to whom land is sold.

Norman Perry, chief executive of the Housing Corporation, said deputy prime minister John Prescott was "not amused when NHS estates sold off all its land" in a recent deal with the Bank of Scotland and Miller Homes.

He added that the use of publicly held land for affordable housing was "definitely an area we will be pushing with English Partnerships".

Perry pointed out that bodies such as the Ministry of Defence have substantial holdings in the Home Counties around London, in what has become one of the areas of highest housing demand.

He said that he and John Walker, the interim chief executive of the English Partnerships, will sit on each other's boards. They will attempt to get housing associations, housebuilders and the chairs of the regional development agencies to put pressure on public bodies to release surplus land for affordable housing.